Enterprise Console may sometimes be unable to contact the copy of Sophos Remote Management System (RMS) on computers (endpoints) running Sophos Anti-Virus for Windows. This will cause those computers to react slowly to command from the console, as they will only receive instructions when they request them.

This can be because a firewall or NAT (network address translation) is preventing inward communications. The central console should be able to contact the endpoint to notify it of new instructions.

What To Do

Note: The Sophos Client Firewall automatically recognises RMS. No further configuration is needed.

Technical details

RMS by default operates in 'active consumer' mode in which endpoints poll the server for messages (by default this happens approximately every 15 minutes).

The server can notify an endpoint that messages are available; the endpoint will then poll the server and collect the messages.

If the notification messages can't reach the endpoint, then the endpoint will get the messages only through periodic polling. This can cause the endpoint to be slow to react to commands sent from the server.